Fujifilm FinePix S6000fd

Front
The front of the Fujifilm S6000fd has a mountainous landscape with the hand grip on the left and the zoom lens protruding from the right. The hand grip has a rubber textured material and bumps on it to enhance comfort for the fingers.

The zoom lens looks like one that can be taken off and interchanged with others, but it can't be interchanged; it has the zoom and focus rings, wide barrel, and circular lens window. Around the lens’ outer rim are these specs: "Fujinon Zoom Lens, 10.7x Optical f=6.2-66.7 mm, 1: 2.8-4.9, 58 mm." The last number indicates the lens’ diameter, which is reasonably wide.

Directly above the long zoom lens is the pop-up flash unit with the Fujifilm logo at its forefront. It pops up automatically when a flash mode is selected in the menu. Below the "F" in "Fujifilm" are three holes that make up the built-in microphone. To its left is a thumbnail-sized circular window that doubles as the auto focus assist and self-timer lamp. Overall, the front of the camera looks very much like an SLR with its many protrusions and lengthy lens.

Back
The back of the camera looks more like an ultra-zoom digital camera because it is compact and doesn’t have as many controls as a DSLR. The most SLR-like feature is the electronic viewfinder surrounded by the comfortable rubber eyecup. Directly left of the viewfinder is a tight diopter adjustment control. To the bottom left of this feature is an LED indicator lamp that blinks when recording movies and writing to the memory card and such. The landscape on the back isn’t mountainous, but there are hills and valleys.

The LCD screen is more of a plateau; it is framed upon a platform that has a Fujifilm logo at the bottom. There are several control buttons to the right of the LCD screen. They are sandwiched between the screen and the rubber material from the hand grip, which wraps around the back and extends inward even more where the right thumb grips the camera. The part of the rubber that extends farther has nine bumps on it to make sure thumbs don’t slip. 

At the top right corner of the LCD screen is a silver circular button with a face icon on it; this is the one-touch face detection button. Below this, and between the screen and the hand grip material, are two buttons: the top one switches the view between the LCD and viewfinder, while the bottom one activates the digital zoom to magnify images.

The multiselector is below this and is made of a central Menu/OK button and a surrounding ring that can be tapped in four directions to navigate around the menus. The right side of this ring has a flash icon on it to switch flash modes, while the left side activates the macro mode. Below the multiselector are two buttons: the left changes the display and the right one accesses the "F" menu options.

Left Side
From the left side, you can see the upper portion of the flash and the shoulder sloping onto the main portion of the camera. Just under the bend of the shoulder is where the wide silver neck strap eyelet is located. Below it is a plastic door with a very wide and somewhat bubbly finger grip; this opens to the memory card slot for an xD-Picture card. In the divot by the bubbly finger grip are a bunch of holes that make up the built-in speaker. At the very bottom of the left side is an L-shaped flimsy plastic cover that opens to reveal the three jacks: DC-in, AV-out, and USB.

To the left of all these features, the camera body slopes toward the lens. It is on this slope that a "10.7x Optical Zoom" label graces the center. Just above it is a switch that moves to the following positions that are labeled on the body: Continuous, Single, and Manual Focus. In the center of the switch is a tiny button that has what looks like a bow-tie icon; this is the one-touch auto focus button. From this side, the zoom and focus rings can be seen on the S6000fd.

Right Side
Compared to the left side, the right side is nearly featureless. It has only a matching wide neck strap eyelet that is partially set back into the camera body. The rest of the thick hand grip is covered by a rubber material that makes for more gripping and less slipping.

Top
The top of the camera shows the S6000fd’s wide set shoulders and the hill just left of center that houses the pop-up flash. Atop the hand grip is where all the features are packed on the top – where the right hand can easily get at them. On the rear right corner is a quarter-sized mode dial with lines embossed in the sides for better grip. At the top right corner is the shutter release button, surrounded by the power switch that also activates recording and playback modes. There are two small buttons behind this feature. The one on the left activates the burst mode and the one on the right changes the exposure compensation.

Bottom
On the bottom of the hand grip is a strangely shaped battery compartment that houses four AA batteries. The door has a tiny plastic lock that slides into place. When it isn’t locked, the cover springs open and the batteries fall out if you’re not good and ready. Directly right of this door, and left of where the lens sits, is the quarter-inch tripod mount. The right side of the bottom is filled with serial numbers and boring information.